Sampler Dashboard vs Grafana Loki

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureSampler DashboardGrafana Loki
CategoryDashboards & StartpagesMonitoring & Status
LicenseGPL-3.0AGPL-3.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM64 MB512 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, binarydocker, kubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 14,727★ 28,687
First released20192018
ReplacesGrafanaSplunk, Datadog Logs

Why pick each one

Choose Sampler Dashboard if…

  • Runs in a terminal
  • No web stack needed
Sampler Dashboard details

Choose Grafana Loki if…

  • Cheap to run compared to full-text indexers
  • Familiar Prometheus-style labels
Grafana Loki details

Frequently asked questions

Is Sampler Dashboard or Grafana Loki better?

Neither is universally better. Grafana Loki has the larger community, while Sampler Dashboard is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Sampler Dashboard and Grafana Loki free and open-source?

Yes. Sampler Dashboard is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Grafana Loki under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Sampler Dashboard and Grafana Loki with Docker?

Sampler Dashboard: check the project docs for container support. Grafana Loki: yes.

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